


you exist behind my eyelids

by imustbeloyletomycapo



Series: if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too [1]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imustbeloyletomycapo/pseuds/imustbeloyletomycapo
Summary: sad number one boy hoursset post s2e1 The Summer Palacecw for thoughts of suicide and self harm
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Series: if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042740
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	you exist behind my eyelids

Do you know how it feels when your heart has given up? Just turned off its computer, packed its bag, closed the door and gone home? Kendall thought that this is what it must feel like when you're about to die. He wanted to ask his father; surely he'd understand what he meant after the hemorrhage. He probably had felt like this too, hadn't he? Maybe it would be something they could bond over, finally. 

Fuck your pets and kill your wives. The words came tumbling out of his mouth like water; words he'd heard said on countless phone calls all throughout his life. His mouth felt like a conduit for Logan in that moment, like he was speaking into an earpiece phrases for Kendall to repeat. He looked at Sandy, smirking back at him. He'd probably heard this exact speech before from a different mouth in a different place at a different time. He looked at Stewy but he couldn't see him, because his heart was already shutting down and that meant his other vital organs were too. What use is there for eyes when there's no heart?

When you die, does everything go black? Is it a slow fade or a quick clap? He thought of a boy, struggling and drowning at the bottom of a lake. His final moments filled with fear and the sound of water rushing in his ears. Kendall had been so happy to make it out alive, until he wasn't. 

He thought of Iverson, a fatherless son, and Logan, a sonless father. Well, one son less. It would make things a lot easier wouldn't it? Not having to deal with a dour, disappointing presence that never lived up to ambition or expectations. As useful as an empty condom wrapper. Their pain would hurt deeply at first, although he doubted it would be that deep or last that long. A paper cut, not a gaping wound. Maybe like the cut on his wrist from that particular night, sore but coverable. Blood washed away under a stream of hot water. 

A memory crystallised in front of him. Eighteen, in England at his mother's. the summer before college. He didn't want to be there but Roman and Shiv wouldn't go if he didn't and he was the oldest, the big brother who had to do the right thing. That sense of responsibility weighed on him from the minute he became aware of what it was to be part of a family, even a family like his with a father who didn't care and a mother who wouldn't talk. He always had to do what was right.

Stewy had asked him to call him when he got settled; a conservative turn of phrase from someone so unconservative. Kendall didn't know what settled meant. He didn't think it was a state he had ever or would ever experience. Even when his body was tired, his mind spun in circles down different tracks and around different corners. Stewy was the settled one; carefree and light and sure of himself and his place in the world. 

When Kendall felt a reasonable amount of time had passed in order for the state of settledness to be achieved, he made the call. Stewy answered with a flourish, as he always did. It was noon and he was still in bed. Stewy in bed was something that interested Kendall for reasons he didn't understand. Or maybe he did, maybe he understood too well. Images flashed through his mind of different permutations and positions and places and he could feel his face getting warm and his stomach getting hot. You're not supposed to think about your best friend that way. 

Twenty years later and he still thought about his best friend that way. but they're not best friends any more. 

The sound of a siren passing by broke his train of thought. Greg had been asked to acquire coke in preparation for this evening but there was no sign of him. Kendall knew his father was using Greg as a spy and a minder and a tool, but he didn't care. he wanted Logan to know just how fucked up he was. How he wanted to scream and cry and cut and throw and burn and… die. It was almost comfortable to lie there and stew in self-hatred, imagining himself doing those things. A twisted fantasy that unfurled the dark knot in the pit of his stomach and allowed him to breathe. But it wasn't time to make dreams a reality, not yet. He needed to be there to clean up the mess. 

Which mess was that? The bear hug? The accident? His fucking existence? He thought of his father's piss on the floor of his office. Even after it had been washed and cleaned and shampooed and washed, he could still find the stink lingering in his nostrils. Burned into them. Why shouldn't his father take ownership of them as well as everything else? Father knows best, especially for boys like him, who drink and screw and sniff things that they shouldn't. 

It was almost light out. Messages on his phone, emails in his inbox, but none from the one name he wanted to see illuminated. When Stewy offered himself up last night, every cell in Kendall's body had screamed at himself to take the opportunity. Open his mouth, sob, yell, fall to pieces. Logically it was the easiest thing to do. Talking to your best friend slash business partner slash love of your life (whisper that last part so he doesn't hear) about your troubles and let them hmm and aww and pat you on the shoulder and kiss you and make it better. But nothing will ever, ever, ever make this better. All the coke in the world, all the best shit, all the sex, all the money, all the love. Nothing can ever change what happened, what he did. 

Shame welled up in Kendall's throat like cement and rushed down his limbs and through his bloodstream, until every part of him was covered in a thick, grey sheet. it stuck to his insides, like cholesterol to an artery. He was fucked. This wasn't a new feeling, Shame had been Kendall's loyal companion since he was five years old and his mother slapped him for laughing at Roman falling of his tricycle. It was indelibly inked on his heart and brain; the ink growing darker and deeper each year. Coke and pills washed it away for a moment, but it always came crashing back. Back with grabbing hands around his throat, making him stutter and start. 

The very idea that someone as broken and weak as him could stand up and take what he wanted was honestly laughable. The looks on his siblings' faces at the wedding, so disbelieving it was almost mocking. Any time he asked for something it came from a place of weakness. When he asked Logan about the succession plan, when he asked Jess to contact his dealer, when he asked his (ex) wife if despite everything she still loved him, when he asked his (ex) best friend if despite everything he still loved him. These latter sentiments weren't necessarily communicated through language, but through thirst and desire and want and need. He knew if he asked the question out loud the answer would invariably be no. 

Or did he? Was this another example of the black hole that lived at his centre sucking his mind in and collapsing everything in his path? Rationally, he knew that someone must love him. Rome and Shiv and Con. His kids. His parents. Rava, once. Stewy, once? Stewy had loved him deeply and again and again and again and always, but it was never enough and now he was gone and it was terrible and the world was scary and cold. 

And it was his own doing.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry I'm sorry I'm trying to remove it
> 
> kenstew has infected my brain and writing terrible incoherent fic is the only way I can get rid of it
> 
> title from see you again by tyler, the creator


End file.
